Haikai No Ku - Temporary Infinity

The latest LP from Newcastle’s Haikai No Ku finds the band as uncompromising as ever, picking up where 2014’s Ultra High Dimensionality left us.

And where exactly did that last LP leave us? Stranded somewhere in the desert, tripping like mad on some local brew and staring into a shapeshifting void as Japanese legends Les Rallizes Dénudés fearlessly tuned into the hum of the universe with layers of infinite drone.

It’s fair to say that Temporary Infinity isn’t a verse-chorus-verse kind of deal; 5 tracks of lumbering, gargantuan drones that plough through your headphones and into your fragile cranium like some kind of sonic juggernaut. There’s no stand out moment in particular yet the overall effect is persuasively powerful.

You may recognise the trio’s guitarist, Mike Vest, from fellow Geordie drone-gods Bong. The two bands certainly share some common ground, yet where Bongs last LP (the superb We Are, We Were and We Will Have Been) at times edged towards a blissed-out ambience there is no such calming influence within Temporary Infinity.

Vest’s guitar sounds colossal with wave-after-wave of distortion heavy noise howling through the speakers with an almost elemental force. The rhythm section, Jerome Smith and Sam Booth, keep the never-ending cosmic swing in perpetual motion; heavy, repetitious rhythms designed to send you into some kind of hypnotic state.

It’s all recoded with the appropriate lack of polish, every beat and wash of feedback coming through in its raw, untamed state. The pace ebbs and flows with the band usually finding it’s groove somewhere around that slow, heavy sweet spot that Dylan Carson and Earth are so familiar with.

It doesn’t seem like a particular problem that Temporary Infinity doesn’t sound too dissimilar to the bands previous releases as variety isn’t really the point here (although at a push I’d say this release was even more fuzz heavy than its predecessor). Temporary Infinity is simply the next step in a never-ending cosmic journey. It’s weirdly reassuring to know that the drone goes on and on……..